Just some questions that popped into my head after recently going through your EXCALIBUR run:

Upon your return to the title with #42, how far had you planned ahead and was there any sense of the book "writing itself"?

Whose idea was Joyboy?

When you were doing WOLVERINE: Bloodlust, did you have any inkling that the Neuri would come into play with Meggan's development?

Speaking of Meggan, her true aspect rather resembles Snowbird of Alpha Flight. Any influence/relation there?

Re: the scene below, from EXCALIBUR #1, did you and Mr. Claremont have any further plans or ideas for this or was it something you just built on later when you returned? Same question applies to Colin/Kylun.

Upon your return to the title with #42, how far had you planned ahead and was there any sense of the book "writing itself"?

I worked out the ‘long story’ up to issue 50 and beyond before writing the first episode. My brief from editorial (Terry Kavanagh) had been to resolve as many of the loose ends that had been dangling since the early issues AND to rationalise the Phoenix ‘situation’ because of planned developments across the other X-Books.

Whose idea was Joyboy?

The name and power were in Chris’s plot. I designed the visual.

When you were doing WOLVERINE: Bloodlust, did you have any inkling that the Neuri would come into play with Meggan's development?

Not deliberately. I had the idea for a spirit race when I created Meggan, never thought I’d use it when I wrote the last Captain Britain story so modified/recycled for Wolverine: Bloodlust. When the opportunity to tell Meggan’s back story arose, it was just convenient to make the previously unnamed spirit race the Neuri.

Speaking of Meggan, her true aspect rather resembles Snowbird of Alpha Flight. Any influence/relation there?

Nothing deliberate.

Re: the scene below, from EXCALIBUR #1, did you and Mr. Claremont have any further plans or ideas for this or was it something you just built on later when you returned?

None at all. A lot of the time Chris would give only the vaguest descriptions for the ‘throw-away’ scenes. ‘Nightcrawler opens the door and sees some really weird alternate Earth—Have fun!’

Same question applies to Colin/Kylun?

I wasn’t aware of any plans Chris might have had and regarded Colin as another throwaway that could be included to add to the sense of every loose end being a strand of the elaborate Cosmic scheming.

Just as a further (random) thought, Snowbird and Meggan are rather similar in powers and, perhaps, origin too. They could almost be sisters. Seems like there could be (or have been) an intriguing story possibility there.

In Excalibur #67 you had Captain Britain strongly reacting to the true identity of Arthur, the armoured warrior leading the R.C.X. indicating he knew him in our timeline but not as an ally, but instead as a villain.

Nigel Orpington Smythe had been the mastermind/manipulator behind Cloud Nine in the Excalibur arc, 62-65, that immediately preceded the Days of Future Yet to Come arc, 66-67.

It wasn’t a significant feature of either story but I thought it an interesting example of the notion that, aside from the fact the winner writes history to validate their cause and actions, heroes and villains are decided by circumstance and philosophical perspective. Smythe was clearly on the wrong side in the ‘Cloud Nine’ arc but in the DoFYtC arc the same character, with the exact same philosophy and drive, was regarded as a true champion.

Quick question...I've been re-reading the Captain Britain run and now Excalibur and I notice the character called "Fascination" in the Cap stories is called "Scatterbrain" in Excalibur. Did I miss something? Was this a rights issue? Thanks